American vs European Attitude To Siamese Cat

There seems to be a difference is attitude between American (here, I mean North American) Siamese cat breeders and Siamese cat breeders in Europe including of course the UK.

How to raise Siamese cats and kittens By Janine Connor refers to the criticism by European breeders and breeders "around the world" of the American breeder's desire to breed Siamese cats with an extreme appearance; meaning very slender and what a well known person in the cat fancy in America has called "rat-like" heads and indeed bodies. If you go to a cat show you can see what she means.

I personally prefer the traditional (Applehead) appearance but I respect other people's views and desires. The question I wish to pose is, "Why do American breeders in general prefer the extreme appearance of the modern Siamese cat?"

I can only speculate and I would love some comments but don't expect to get them. We know that America is a consumer society par excellence. The food there is superb and cheap. People can become obese very easily. Is the desire to bred slender elegant cats a response to the human weight problem? And then rather than simply breed an elegant cat that is slender but not overly so, cat breeders in the true tradition of the human condition just go too far and can't stop or don't know when to stop, breeding a more and more refined appearance until it looks extreme and wrong to a large number of people.

Having got to that point breeders can't go back, in part, because the cat associations have by then fixed the appearance in cement under the constantly revised breed standard. The CFA the largest cat association support the extreme modern Siamese and flat faced Persian and reject wildcat hybrids, an anomaly I would suggest.

Well, that is one odd theory that just popped into my mind which may be completely incorrect.

Siamese Cat Binocular Vision

The Siamese cat is well known for a squint and a kinked tail. Both have been bred out by breeders over the years as they are considered "defects" but they are nonetheless part of this cat breed's heritage. The kinked tail in cat show competition is reason to disqualify the cat as I recall.

There are colorful legends regarding the squint that are usually about Siamese cats who defended temples and valuables. The task was arduous and it caused the cats to develop a squint!

The question on some people's minds is, "does the Siamese cat squint affect normal vision and particularly binocular vision?" Let's first say that it isn't just Siamese cats that have squints but they have a genetic predisposition to acquiring the squint. The cat below is not a Siamese but has a clear squint. Perhaps she is a Siamese mix (lynx point)

Not Siamese but clear squint - Photo by fazen (Flickr)

Cats have two eyes to allow them to judge distance and depth. Two eyes give animals a form of three dimensional vision. This is important to cats in making judgements on tracking objects, jumping and hunting etc.

It transpires that the squint is apparently a compensation for defective wiring of the nerves that go from the eyes to the brain. In normal cats half the optical nerves cross over to the side of the brain opposite to the position of the eye. This provides binocular vision.

In Siamese cats the nerve fibres that were not meant to cross over, do in fact cross over. This causes "the faulty positioning of the retinal map on the tectum". The tectum is a region of the brain, specifically the dorsal part of the mesencephalon (midbrain). The squint cancels out the effects of the faulty positioning on the tectum by "altering the positioning of the retina".

So there you have it. The squint develops over the first six to eight weeks of the kitten's life to make this compensation.

Siamese cat binocular vision is maintained by the famous Siamese cat squint. That's how nature has compensated for a genetically inherited neurological defect. Incidentally, the Siamese and Persian cats have the most genetically inherited diseases and are two of the most long standing purebred cats.

The references are from the New Scientist Aug 17, 1972. Thanks to Google Books.

Biggest and Smallest Cats

We have a fascination with extremes. Maybe we are bored. Extremes provide excitement, something different. And so, the world's largest or biggest cat is a source of interest for many. People also like nice clean, black and white answers. Unfortunately almost everything in life is gray!

People searching for the world's biggest cat are probably searching for one individual cat that is the biggest. That cat is probably a man made liger calledHercules. A liger is a lion to tiger hybrid. People are also fascinated with creating different cat breeds etc. Hercules weighs about 900 lbs and frankly he looks overweight and flabby but he is certainly enormous; an animal from the age of dinosaurs.

But the world's biggest cat could also mean the world's biggest cat species. That would be the tiger and particularly the tiger subspecies, the Siberian or Amur tiger. Or perhaps people are looking for the biggest domestic cat breed. That would be a wildcat hybrid called a Savannah cat but it would have to be a first filial (F1). The biggest individual domestic cat in the world isMAGIC and she truly is a magical cat.

Other large domestic cats are the Maine Coon (all domestic, no wild blood) and the Ragdoll. These are called "substantial" in cat fancy language. But we should remember that not all Maine Coons are big.

If we are talking about the world's biggest our wondering minds probably turn to the smallest too. There is no official world's smallest cat mainly because the Guinness World Records people decided to stop that category because people were overdoing it in trying to breed very small cats to the detriment of the cat's health.

The world's smallest cat breed is the Singapura not the dwarf cats. The dwarf cats are normal sized except for the leg length. The world's smallest wildcat is the rusty-spotted cat and amongst that species there will be one individual cat that is right now wondering around the forest in India that is the world's smallest individual cat. No one knows where she is and thank heavens for that.

Hurricane Preparedness for Your Cats

The underlying ethos and method of what to do for your cats when preparing for a hurricane or any impending disaster is to do for your cats what you do for yourself. If your cat is treated as a second level family member or even disposable (and some people do think like that), your cat will be in danger in a hurricane. I am thinking of hurricane Irene and Florida generally. I am told that Florida has on average four hurricane's per year. Is that right? That must be a factor why not to live in the otherwise sunny and desirable Florida.

Preparedness seems to be the key factor. Getting in extra water and cat food in case these are not available for several days would seem common sense. Having a safe place to go to during the hurricane must be a priority. Apparently there are special shelters in Florida for people but not cats! That means setting up some alternative safe shelter to protect your cat during the storm. Perhaps your own shelter or a local veterinarian might have facilities that are suitable.

Ultimately it also means sticking with your cat if you can. Reassurance and familiar activities will help to settle a cat when he or she is frightened by noise.

We should check that our cat carriers are to hand and in good working order too. Finally what about the stray and feral cats? We can't do much for them, sadly. But we might be able to figure out something that can help such as enticing them into a shelter of some kind. Although they might be better finding there own shelter. Cats are pretty good survivors.



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Top Cat Breeds for Children

People like the idea of finding a cat breed that is suitable for children and rightly so. I suppose we are looking at cat breeds that are mellow in character and able to put up with a child's boisterous behavior and perhaps the odd bit of mishandling.

Catster.com have a page on the subject and they list one of the qualities of a suitable cat as "not territorial". Sorry Catster but all cats are territorial. It is just a complete misconception to think that a certain cat breed is not territorial. All cats, random bred or purebred, have the same form and fundamental behavior as wildcats. Wildcats are decidedly territorial.

Also without wishing to be unnecessarily critical or argumentative, you will not find a lot of difference in character between the cat breeds. This is because cat breeders don't prioritise character and behavior or health. They prioritise appearance. And if they did try and breed a super mellow cat it would not work. If it did it would have happened by now.

Certainly some cat breeds might tend to be more mellow and accepting, the Ragdoll comes to mind. But the laid back nature of this cat breed is, to be honest, over hyped. Sometimes, you'll get unsocialised Ragdolls that are not great to be with.

Which brings me to the much more important question of socialisation of cats and training of children!

If any cat, random bred or purebred, is very well socialised to accept children, other cats, noises, adult people, whatever, they will be fine for a child. But the child must also be socialised in one way: trained to handle a cat.

Any cat not matter how well socialised will possibly respond temporarily aggressively if handled badly; say for example picked up roughly and turned over on his or her back. This makes a cat feel vulnerable.

In addition individual cats within a certain cat breed will have a greater range of character types that have a stronger impact on suitability for a child than the general character of that breed.

So it is really about individual cats that counts and the child's behavior.

In conclusion, therefore, if you are searching for the top cat breeds for children, you should instead look for a cat breed that you like and that your child likes and ensure that the adopted cat is socialised extremely well (check with the breeder and by playing with the cat). And...the big "and", ensure also that you, the mother, have trained your child to respect cats, to handle and to play with them properly, by which I mean in a manner that the cat finds acceptable and non-threatening.

Simple really. Top cat breeds for children don't really exist.



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